PR pro and former Uber communications executive Lane Kasselman had some sage advice for the attendees at the PR Round Table’s April 24, 2018, Scholarship Program lunch: “Fake it ’til you make it” — a lesson he learned the hard way, several times over.

While he started his talk with this note of encouragement for the four college scholarship winners in attendance, Kasselman’s messages resonated with both ends of the spectrum — the newbies in the audience and the established PR professionals. Listening in rapt attention were the three dozen PR Round Table members and guests who gathered at Golden Gate University to recognize this year’s Philip N. McCombs Scholarship Program honorees (read about the four student winners here) and to hear insights from Kasselman.

As a graduate of Cal State University-Sacramento with a BA in government and journalism, Kasselman went to work for the Office of Governor Gray Davis as a public information officer before returning to academics and getting a law degree at Golden Gate University. While in law school, he started to work for San Francisco’s then-mayor Gavin Newsom, as his deputy policy director. It was in this role where he had his first experience of “faking it,” when he was the mayor’s liaison on the scene as police raided illicit massage parlors. He found himself thrust in the position of dealing with the media who came along on the high-profile operation.

From the Mayor’s Office he went on to work for Hillary Clinton’s initial campaign for president, from 2007 to 2008, and in 2010 he was recruited by AT&T to be director of communications and public affairs. He experienced a trial by fire early on at AT&T when a story by a notoriously critical LA Times reporter made mincemeat out of him. In fact, it was so harsh that Kasselman’s father, a faithful LA Times reader, felt compelled to call the reporter and yell at him.

“It was my first on-the-record thing, and my dad had to fix it,” Kasselman said wryly.

The call had a miraculous and unexpected effect, prompting the reporter to apologize; and forever after, Kasselman was known around AT&T as the “whisperer” for this reporter.

In 2014 Kasselman made the hop to the position of Uber’s head of communications for the Americas. It was in the fast-paced environment of Uber, where he led a 50-person team driving the legalization of ridesharing across the U.S., that he really honed his skills: He was called upon to exercise every facet of PR every day, with many on-camera interviews.

Kasselman left Uber after a little under two years. After some down time to regroup and get in tune with nature and his body (he’s now an avid cyclist), he partnered with an Uber colleague to form Greenbrier Partners, a San Francisco PR firm specializing in crisis communications, public affairs and narrative development.

Kasselman has a philosophy of rejecting monthly retainer relationships, preferring to work on projects with a defined scope and an end date. In fact, Greenbrier has had about 80 clients in its two years of existence. While Greenbrier has been acquired by a parent company based in Washington, D.C. (The Messina Group), his office continues to operate independently.

Kasselman ended his talk by conveying his 10 Rules of Public Relations. Key among these:

“We all do windows, we all do floors.” In other words, be prepared to do anything. He learned this while working for Mayor Newsom, where he was once called upon to hold a boom mic for an entire day for a photo/video shoot.

Mentors are important throughout your career, and are even more important once you’ve made it. He credits two career-long mentors with helping guide the way for him.

There’s plenty of work to go around. You don’t have to fight or stab people in the back if you don’t get today’s contract or assignment, because another opportunity will come tomorrow.

A closely related rule: “Don’t sweat the break-up” with a client. “There are clients all over the place,” he said. “They’re waiting for you. They’re looking for you.”

Kasselman highlighted two seemingly contradictory trends: While on the one hand big corporations are bringing PR work in-house, the explosion of new companies around the Bay Area translates to opportunities for smaller PR agencies, as startups often can’t afford an in-house PR team.

As for what’s meant by “narrative development,” a key focus area for Greenbrier, he gave an example. When Amazon merged with Whole Foods, the development was seen as a potential threat to Instacart, a locally grown food delivery service. Kasselman’s team changed the narrative to portray it as the best thing that ever happened to Instacart. “We flipped it,” he said.

The four winners of the SF PR Round Table’s 2018 Philip N. McCombs Scholarships are going places, and our infusion of funding will help them get there. Members had the opportunity to meet these dynamic newbie PR practitioners at the scholarship lunch held on April 24, 2018. Each of the winners received a check for $2,500, which adds up to $10,000 in scholarship money gifted by our organization this year. That money comes from our members, primarily by means of the auction at our annual Holiday Party, and through generous direct donations to the Scholarship Fund.Students can use the funds for such purposes as paying their educational costs, financing relevant abroad programs, repaying loans, attending conferences or covering living expenses while they take on internships.

The 2017-18 scholarship cycle was our most competitive ever. We received some 30 eligible applications — double last year’s number — from students studying at nine colleges and universities in and around the Bay Area, and narrowed the field to eight finalists who each underwent a panel interview. The Scholarship Committee ultimately selected the four winners based on their applications, interviews, recommendations and writing samples. The students’ understanding of the PR profession, volunteer/work experience and commitment to the field also factored into the equation.

If you want to be inspired about the future of our profession, take a minute to read the winners’ bios below (we also list other finalists, as they will receive special benefits this year). Our four winners are a hard-working, ambitious bunch indeed, with one working full-time while attending grad school, and two working 20 hours a week to support themselves while earning their BAs. They have overcome financial hardships, and they have dealt with tragedy. Two of our winners lost their mothers at a young age, one while in high school, one while in college. They kept pushing forward, becoming ever more fiercely dedicated to the allied fields of public relations, marketing communications and the like. And they did it all while maintaining a 3.5 GPA or better.

Most importantly, our scholarship winners are a diverse group who want to bring more diversity to our profession, do good in the world and be on the cutting edge of technology.

We intend for our Scholarship ceremony to be the beginning of a relationship with these up and coming PR practitioners, not an end. This year we are offering all scholarship finalists (the four winners and the four runners up) a free associate membership in the PR Round Table for the remainder of 2018, and winners also received a free pass to our Member Mixer at the Equinox club on June 26, 2018. So keep an eye out for these new faces at upcoming events — they are eager to expand their networks, and they bring fresh perspectives on where our professional can and should go.

— Brenda Kahn, 2018 Chair

Note: Are you looking to fill an internship or entry-level job? If so, we would be happy to put you in touch with our scholarship winners/finalists, and/or announce the position in our next enewsletter and post it to the sfprrt.org website. Just email me at brenda.kahn@yahoo.com

2018 San Francisco Public Relations Round Table Scholarship Winners

Jasmine Garciais a senior majoring in Public Relations at San Jose State University. She has been active on campus throughout her academic career, serving as director of communications for the Associated Students government in 2016-17, and this year as president of the campus chapter of the Public Relations Student Society of America. She has worked as an events and promotion intern for the San Jose Downtown Association and as a public relations and social media intern for the Xerox Corporation. Garcia has also been active with the student-run advertising and public relations agency on campus, Dwight Bentel Hall Communications, where she has been leading a team that is writing and strategizing a PR campaign for a real client as part of the Public Relations Student Society of America’s Bateman Competition. She currently works 20 hours a week as a marketing content writer for the Associated Students Marketing and Events Department on campus, and plans to use the scholarship money to begin repaying her college loans. Stating in her application that she wants to use her public relations skills “to make an impact on a global level,” Garcia added that she wants to become “one of the few Latina women in the industry (and) to pave the way for more diversity in higher positions.”

Irma Guardadois currently a grad student in Professional Communication with a concentration in Strategic Communication at the University of San Francisco, having previously earned a bachelor’s in Public Relations at San Jose State University. She has been pursuing her master’s degree while working full-time as an integrated media intern at the S.F. office of Weber Shandwick, a leading global communications agency. She was a social media manager at www.expatsinmexico.com, and a marketing and communications intern for the San Jose State University Career Center. In the volunteer realm, she led a team in the planning and marketing of the Annual Cal State University Folklorico (Dance) Showcase at SJSU, among other activities. She will use the SFPRRT scholarship to help cover her tuition, and repay her student loans. Guardado is the first in her family to graduate from a university, and the first in her family to pursue a graduate degree. “In the future, I hope to open my own multicultural-focused PR agency in the Bay Area to effectively reach the Hispanic community,” she wrote in her application, “and to create relevant content and campaigns targeted to the bilingual population.” Guardado announced at the lunch that she had just been promoted from an intern position to a junior associate at Weber Shandwick, further proof of her capabilities and bright future.

Elsabete Kebede is a junior majoring in Public Relations, in the Journalism/Mass Communications Department at San Jose State University. She transferred into SJSU this academic year from De Anza College, where she worked on the school newspaper. Having emigrated from Ethiopia with her family at the age of four, Kebede is helping to foster understanding of her culture while honing her PR and event planning skills by serving on the marketing/PR Committee for the Ethiopian Eritrean Student Conference. She serves on the Social Media Committee of the campus branch of the Public Relations Student Society of America, and hopes to go to the organization’s National Conference in Austin this year. Largely self-supporting, Kebede works 20 hours a week doing social media for San Jose State University’s Justice Studies Department. She hopes to gain a global perspective through a study-abroad program — something the SFPRRT scholarship will help finance. A “passionate storyteller,” Kebede intends to go into entertainment public relations, where she can “be at the table promoting books and films that target underrepresented groups in our society,” she wrote in her application.

Angela Mesgarzadehis a senior majoring in Media Studies at UC Berkeley. She has been very active in imagiCal — a fully student-run advertising agency representing the UC Berkeley chapter of the American Advertising Federation — for the past year serving as the organization’s PR director. In addition to this volunteer activity, she already has had five communications-related positions, including as a content writer for Upfizz Media; a digital marketing intern for Ticketmaster; and an integrated media intern at global PR firm Weber Shandwick. Her goal post-graduation this spring is to initially work for a public relations agency. “I believe the fast-paced work environment and diversity of client work that agencies can offer will allow me to learn and grow early on,” she wrote in her application. Mesgazardeh hopes to eventually transition to an in-house communications role at a media or consumer tech company, and in the longer term, to pursue a master’s degree in communications. The SFPRRT scholarships will help pay off her student loans, easing her transition into post-graduation life.

Other 2018 Scholarship Finalists (Also Offered an Associate Membership in the PR Round Table for the Remainder of the Calendar Year)

Jennifer has returned to the Bay Area after serving as the national director of communications for the Salvation Army in Washington D.C. Many of you may already know her from her earlier years here in SF, where she was the public relations director of The Salvation Army from 2002 to 2009, She missed her friends and the lifestyle of our fair city and has returned here as the divisional director of communications (again, for The Salvation Army). We know Jennifer is great at her job. But did you know that among her claims to fame is her stint as a DJ while at Sweet Briar College? The call letters were WUDZ, so she would start her shift by saying, “It’s time to get down in the WUDZ.” Jennifer describes herself as “a wicked David Bowie fan” who once serenaded a visiting ballet troupe at the school by playing “Let’s Dance” for them on air. At the reception the college scheduled for them later that evening, the lead dancer told her it was ‘a brilliant move,” a kudo on which she still prides herself to this day. In addition to joining PRRT, Jennifer has long been an award-winning member of PRSA-SF.

Scott Maier

Scott is senior public information representative at UC San Francisco. This former Texan’s career began at the McAllen Monitor, where he was a reporter/copy editor for three years. He joined the University of Texas–Pan American campus as senior editor in 2000, and then became senior writer at UT Southwestern Medical Center in 2002. In 2006 he joined Texas A&M Health Science Center as director of media relations.

At UCSF, Scott covers cardiology, orthopedics, transplant medicine, School of Dentistry and School of Nursing, along with other areas.

One fun fact about him is that he was once on the same basketball court as Shaquille O’Neal. He’s not saying if he was playing, however — and “it was 30 years ago!”

Paula Reinman

Paula is founder of Impactful, a marketing and communications firm for social enterprises and non-profits and foundations. She says she lived a double life for years, leading marketing and communications teams for tech companies while applying her talents to nonprofits on the side, before founding the relatively new agency. A few fun things you should know about her: While she couldn’t care less about sports, she probably could write a book about her family’s sports passions. (It would be called Sports by Osmosis.) And this frequent traveler has been to all 50 states— “walked on the ground, not just changed planes at the airport. My husband counts the former,” she says, “but I aspire to a higher calling.”

Be sure to introduce yourself to each of them at upcoming SFPRRT events and look for their contact data in the soon-to-be published 2018 directory.

Raffle Drawing for a free year’s membership in the Equinox, as well as a $100 gift card that can be used for at the club’s full-service spa or athletic shop — with 100 percent of the proceeds benefiting the PRRT Student Scholarship Program.

Dan Mogulof, the PR Round Table’s February 2018 speaker, was in the crowd that day, observing in his role as UC Berkeley’s assistant vice chancellor of Executive Communications. Drawing on the survival skills he honed as the former CBS Tel Aviv bureau chief, Mogulof crawled through the crowd’s legs and escaped from the melee — but not from the almost year-long communications crisis this event would trigger.

A larger than normal PR Round Table crowd was drawn to the timely speaker as well as to the new venue: Golden Gate University’s lovely University Center, at its Mission Street campus in San Francisco. With its more casual ambiance than the organization’s longtime venue, the setting was conducive to a lively give and take with Mogulof.

Over the course of an hour, Mogulof treated PR Round Table members and their guests to a dramatic retelling of the year’s events, which thrust UC Berkeley back into the national limelight, while testing its commitment to free speech. The controversy prompted a tweet from the president, compelling Mogulof to correct the record in the New York Times.

Through skillful communications, Mogulof was able to expose the concocted narrative of UC Berkeley’s canceling a summer 2017 “Free Speech Week” as a hoax. The Alt-right “journalists” subsequently beat a hasty retreat.

In terms of lessons learned from this lengthy ordeal, Mogulof offered these thoughts

When dealing with a current or potential crisis, closely monitor all communications so they can’t be used against you, out of context.

You must be relentlessly proactive: “shotgun” communications won’t work, you have to use a rifle; you must “get inside the fence” so your audience hears from you directly.

“He said, she said” journalism is at an all-time high; your credentials and experience don’t matter, it’s all about who can create the most “compelling” or emotional story.

There is no more news cycle — everything is immediate, so don’t expect to have time to make a finely-crafted statement or you may miss the boat entirely

Before coming to the University in 2004, Mogulof spent 20 years in broadcast journalism, in the U.S. and abroad. In addition to his stint as the Tel Aviv Bureau Chief for CBS News, he served in a variety of production and management roles for National Geographic Television, New York Times Television and PBS. He is the recipient of four Emmy awards for his news and documentary work.

We have a two-fer for our lunch on Tuesday, April 24, 2018: the awarding of the SF PR Round Table’s 2018 scholarships, and an inspirational talk by a PR pro at the cutting edge of the profession — Lane Kasselman, co-founder of Greenbrier PR. The San Francisco outfit bills itself as a “nimble consulting firm that allows some of the world’s leading companies, organizations and individuals to quickly recover from crises and execute flawless public affairs.” The firm provides strategic advice and tactical execution to clients facing complex image, marketing, branding, media, legal and political challenges.

Trained as a lawyer as well as a communicator, Kasselman is a nationally recognized expert in crisis and public affairs. He ran communications and public affairs for Uber, navigating regulations in the new shared economy and playing a crucial role in creating the company’s permanent regulatory frameworks in states and cities around the world. Previously he also served as director of communications for AT&T where he built the national model for regulatory success, and led Kasselman LLC, where he worked with companies like BP during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and the American Foundation for Equal Rights during the same-sex marriage court decision. His co-founder, Matt McKenna, brings an equally impressive resume to the job, with PR stints with Uber and President Bill Clinton.

We hope you’ll join us, and consider sponsoring one of the student winners of the scholarships, or their advisers. You’ll find a box for sponsorships on the registration form.

Dear Colleagues,

I’m pleased to serve as chair of the San Francisco Public Relations Roundtable (SFPRRT) for 2018. After chairing the club’s Scholarship Committee for several years, and serving as the organization’s vice chair last year, I’m looking forward to helping steer the organization toward reinvigoration, with more members, and members who are more involved. I’ll be aided in this effort by a very strong Board of Governors who are all leaders in the field — you can see the roster on the SFPRRT.org website.

Membership Renewals

We hope to keep this venerable organization vibrant and relevant, and broaden our reach to growth industries in the Bay Area. You, our members, are central to this goal. If you haven’t already renewed, I encourage you to do so today by the January 31 cutoff, via the link on our site at sfprrt.org/membership/, or directly on Eventbrite. You’ll receive significant discounts on the lunch programs and Holiday Party, and access to our exclusive Member Directory of senior PR contacts in the Bay Area.

Membership is just $75 for the year, a bargain compared to other PR organizations around town. And you can do your part to expand our membership by inviting a colleague or coworker to join, and promoting our activities on your social media networks.

Exciting Changes in 2018

Responding to findings of our recent survey, big changes are in store. For starters, we will hold meetings every other month instead of monthly. Please mark your calendars for the SFPRRT lunches on the fourth Tuesdays ofFebruary (27th), April (24th), August (28th) and October (23rd).

Our June meeting will be an evening mixer, and we’ll cap the year with the always popular PR Round Table Holiday Party, set for Tuesday, December 4, once again at the lovely Victor’s atop the Westin St. Francis Hotel. We believe that fewer meetings will translate to greater attendance, along with more participation and energy on the part of our busy members. In addition, we plan to offer activities for club members in the off months – stay tuned to the SFPRRT.org website for details.

Based on your survey responses, we’re also making our meetings more affordable, with a new location and format for lunches. Courtesy of Board Member Blodwen Tarter, we have a terrific new venue at Golden Gate University (536 Mission Street, San Francisco), in the school’s well-equipped University Center.

In lieu of a formal sit-down lunch, we’ll be offering tasty boxed lunches, which will lower the member price to $25, and and the nonmember price to $35 (with a modest Eventbrite processing fee) — just half the member cost in 2017. We might be the only club in town that is reducing our prices in 2018!

Upcoming Speakers

Our February 27 luncheon will feature Dan Mogulof, UC Berkeley’s vice chancellor for public affairs. Mogulof was front and center with the media in 2017 as a series of highly polarizing speakers – from Milo Yiannapoulos to Ann Coulter – turned the UC Berkeley campus into a literal and figurative political battlefield. Click here to sign up for the February lunch.

The following meeting, on April 24, will be SFPRRT’s annual scholarship luncheon and feature public affairs and crisis management expert Lance Kasselman, whose high-profile PR career has included stints with Uber, AT&T, BP (during the oil spill) and various politicians. After leaving Uber, he and colleague Matt McKenna started Greenbrier, a high-powered crisis management and public affairs firm in San Francisco. Kasselman will detail how he navigated a course to the top echelons of the PR realm, and offer his predictions of where the profession is heading.

Scholarship Deadline

Speaking of our Scholarship Program, the deadline for applications is January 31, 2018. Our scholarships are generous, in the $2,500-$3,000 range per winner, so it’s well worth spreading the word to any local universities you’re in touch with, or to any young people in your sphere who are studying PR, communications, journalism, marketing and the like at either the undergraduate or graduate level. Applicants must be attending a college or university within a 100-mile radius of downtown San Francisco. Students can apply at sfprrt.org/scholarship-program/.

Volunteers Needed

There are many opportunities to get involved in 2018. In particular, we are looking for volunteers for the Membership Committee, the Communications Committee (which handles website updates, social media and eblasts to members), the Program Committee and the Events Committee (which will oversee the Holiday Party, the member mixer and other activities), and the Silent Auction Committee.

Please contact me directly at my personal email, brenda.kahn@yahoo.com, if you can help with any of these gigs. A few hours of your time and creativity a month will go a long way toward strengthening our organization, and making it a vibrant forum for the exchange of ideas about the future of the PR field.

Stay in Touch

I hope you will stay in touch with each other and the organization by following the PR Round Table on Facebook and our LinkedIn page. Share our posts, tag us and let us know if you have news or a great post to share.

Responding to findings of our recent survey, big changes are in store for the San Francisco Round Table. For starters, we will hold meetings every other month instead of monthly. Please mark your calendars for the SFPRRT lunches on the fourth Tuesdays of February (27th), April (24th), August (28th) and October (23rd). We believe that fewer meetings will translate to greater attendance, along with more participation and energy on the part of our busy members. Based on your survey responses, we’re also making our meetings more affordable, with a new location and format for lunches. Courtesy of Board Member Blodwen Tarter, we have a terrific new venue at Golden Gate University (536 Mission Street, San Francisco), in the school’s well-equipped sixth-floor University Center. Our June meeting (June 26) will be an evening mixer at the Equinox Club on Market Street in San Francisco, and we’ll cap the year with the always popular PR Round Table Holiday Party, set for Tuesday, December 4, 2018, once again at the lovely Victor’s atop the Westin St. Francis Hotel. In addition, we plan to offer activities for club members in the off months — stay tuned to the SFPRRT.org website for details.In lieu of a formal sit-down lunch, we’ll be offering tasty boxed lunches, which will lower the member price to $25, and and the nonmember price to $35 (with a modest Eventbrite processing fee) — just half the member cost in 2017. We might be the only club in town that is reducing our prices in 2018! If you have ideas for programs, please contact SFPRRT’s 2018 Program Chair Molly Walker, mwalker@mwalkercommunications.com.

Dan Mogulof is the Assistant Vice Chancellor for Executive Communications in UC Berkeley’s Office of Communications and Public Affairs. In that capacity he serves as primary campus spokesperson, and provides to the Chancellor, Provost and other senior campus leaders strategic counsel and support in the realms of communications, media relations and issue management. Mogulof was front and center with the media in 2017 as a series of highly polarizing speakers — from Milo Yiannopoulos to Ann Coulter — turned the UC Berkeley campus into a literal and figurative political battlefield. He’ll talk about communications and PR in a deeply polarized country, and lessons learned from 2017′s media maelstrom.

Before coming to the University in 2004, Dan spent 20 years in broadcast journalism, in the U.S. and abroad. During that period he served as the Tel Aviv Bureau Chief for CBS News, and in a variety of production and management roles for National Geographic Television, New York Times Television and PBS. He is the recipient of four Emmy awards for his news and documentary work.

NOTE — This event is at a NEW location: Golden Gate University, 536 Mission Street, San Francisco.

2017 Holiday Party: Aspire to Inspire

This year’s Holiday Party and scholarship fundraiser was held on Tuesday, December 5, 2017 at Victor’s atop the St. Francis Hotel, San Francisco. As in years past, our featured speakers were SF Chronicle columnists Phil Matier and Andy Ross, who gave us the inside scoop on the year’s political goings on locally, statewide and nationally.

The PR Round Table Scholarship Program benefited from the ever-popular silent auction, generously supported by attendees. Auction items are accepted year-round; to donate an item to the 2018 silent auction, click HERE.

About Matier & Ross: Whether writing about politics or personalities, Phil Matier and Andy Ross have informed and entertained readers for more than two decades about the always fascinating Bay Area and beyond. Their blend of scoops, insights and investigative reporting can be found every Sunday, Monday and Wednesday in the San Francisco Chronicle. Phil is also a regular on KPIX TV and KCBS radio.